Thursday, December 11, 2008

School Schmool

My sweet boy will be in Kindergarten next year. This is causing me a bit of stress. Ok, a lot of stress. He is a very smart, funny, sweet, wild, crazy, exteremly imaginative, active, adorable little boy. Really, he is a handful, but he is my handful. I always thought I'd homeschool because no one loves your child like you do, and frankly I'm scared of sending him off with someone else. But, it really is not the right decision for him or me. It is very hard for me to accept that. But, I need to, and soon. School enrollment is going to be coming up soon and I just don't know what to do.

There are 2 charter schools and 1 private school here also. Jeremy and I visited one of the charter schools on Wednesday and I wasn't very impressed. 26 kindergartners in the room. The aide said, "It really isn't that many; there is the teacher, an aide, and always parent volunteers, so it works out to be more like 7 students to 1 adult". Ok, that is great, except unless those parents and aide have teaching degrees, they are not the teacher. That bothers me. Also, I swear, the kindergarten was more like 1st grade. Now, I am all about the acedemics, but to not have any play space in the room? It bothered me. Maybe it's because we didn't do preschool and I want him to have that opportunity to play...or possibly it's that play is as important to me as acedemics.

I plan to visit the other charter school (him getting into that one is about as likely as me giving up sugar before Christmas), the private school and *gasp* the public school.

Small class size is really important to me. I don't want him getting lost in the shuffle. Which is also why I am a bit resistant to public school. I am afraid that he will either get lost in the shuffle, or his sweet spirit will be so crushed that he wil no longer be the little boy I know and love. I am so afraid of sending him out on his own, where I can't protect him anymore, and not recognizing him when he comes back. I know, this is part of parenting, but it's the hard part. Letting them fly and figuring out what is the best flight plan for them to take.

Then there is the private school. It will only be a private school for one more year, then hopefully become a charter school. If I send him next year, then he and the girls are guaranteed admission when it becomes a charter school. That is what I would really like...but, it costs $5600. I know that as far as private schools go, this is really not too expensive. But, it is still a lot more than we can afford.

I just don't know...I will research more and eat more (cause that's how I handle stress) and maybe after doing the latter, I will feel better about this. If not, at least if Seth gets hurt in school he will have a softer place to land.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It definitely is hard, Momma. Although my daughter has done preschool this and last year and has had a blast with it. It has been good for both of us and she has learned so much and PLAYED a lot. I am scared to send her off to public school but I just don't think we could swing paying for education. My husband and I did well in public school so I know I just have to let go as well. I just wish that it was still the kind of school that I went to with bunches of recesses and not every second of the day cramming information into their little heads for the next test. ~sigh~ And the fall is coming whether we're all ready or not.

Marly said...

I'm sorry! It's so hard to get to this point. I started going back and forth about homeschooling and sending them somewhere. I figured out I just can't do homeschool. I then did the same thing as you and started checking out all the charter schools. Luckily in Salt Lake there are a lot more choices. We got him into a charter school and my second is even excited to go. I'm a little worried about him but I hope it goes over well. Their kindergarten classes are 17 kids.

Anonymous said...

kimmie
I don't know if you have looked into it but Montessouri (? on the spelling) is a GREAT program. I put Caleb in it until 2nd grade and it gave him a wonderful foundation to go to public school. And public school can be great as well. Just depends on your school district. Besides you went to public and you came out GREAT! :) good luck!

Anonymous said...

Takes a brave mom to acknowledge that she might not be enough for her children. I would love to home school... all my friends are doing it... but I realize that God has given me children that I am not set up to meet all their needs. They need help from other people, they need a trained and dedicated and loving teacher, because they are not really teachable by me. I can teach them how to live, love, and play, but teaching them academics, how to speak clearly, how to socialize with others etc, I wasn't enough. I wasn't trained, I didn't have years of practice...nor did I have an extra helping of patience (even now doing homework with the children sets me over the edge into mean and angry mommy--thus the Dad does homework with them most nights).... We public school. It hasn't crushed our children, in fact my 6 year old, shy, no talking, not much spark of life in her, came alive last year because of school life. Now she's miss popular, cute and cool...

Public school isn't what we remember. It's much different, the programs and the way they do things. Even my "weird" kids have been plugged in and have friends (it's not easy, we aren't LDS, they don't know all the kids from Church... we thought fitting in might be hard but it hasn't' been) My 13 year says she's never been teased?! (how? I lived in a school where I got teased every single day?) My son, the smart one, the too smart one, might have had the most difficult time, but it matters the year and what teacher he gets and if they are willing to engage him above the level they are teaching. Usually they are.

Sarah said...

I soooo could have written this post, my firend. Every word.